MY START AS A TRAINER 67 



successful. Wells rode Washington. He was 

 retained by Sir Joseph at a salary of ;^ioo per 

 annum. That figure also represented my own 

 salary ; but I must add that Sir Joseph was very 

 liberal in the way of presents. Neither Wells nor 

 I had any cause to complain. I was glad to 

 have the services of Wells at my disposal. We 

 were old friends and I could rely upon him 

 implicitly. 



St. Alexis, by Stockwell out of Mendicant, 

 was another horse I won a race with that year — 

 the Great Eastern Railway Handicap at New- 

 market, at the end of September. He was then 

 a gelding. I had been using him as a hack, 

 because he was supposed to be too roguish to have 

 any further value as a racehorse. I humoured 

 him as much as possible, allowing him to 

 stand about on the training ground and watch 

 the other horses doing their work. In the end 

 he became perfectly quiet, and Sir Joseph was 

 delighted when I got a race out of him. We 

 then sold him, and he won three races the follow- 

 ing year. One morning during the time I was 

 using St. Alexis as a hack, I waited behind, after 

 the horses had gone away to the exercise ground, 

 to get my letters. When these arrived I set off 

 for the Downs. Forgetting the character of the 

 animal I was riding, I let the reins fall slack 

 and began to read one of my letters. St. Alexis 

 suddenly bucked, and I was thrown into the 



